Daily attendance
This page contains information on the numbers of students attending school each day.
Updated: Daily
Interactive Dashboard
Notes on the dashboard
- The dates at which schools begin Term 1 and end Term 4 are flexible. Having flexible dates allows each school to meet the requirements for teaching time each year and also accommodate local events and teacher-only days. Because the school response rate is the percentage of all schools included in the dashboard, not just those that are open, school response rates are lower at the beginning of the year until all schools are open.
- Attendance rates are less accurate in the first one or two weeks of the school year, and when small numbers of schools are open. For example, in some instances students may only be required to attend for part of a day, and the daily attendance dashboard only counts a student as present on a given day if they are at school for four hours or more.
- The dashboard is updated by midday each day with data from the previous school day. Any revised information about student attendance or absence supplied by schools for previously reported days is also updated.
- The red line on the Daily Attendance Overview dashboard represents 94%. The Government has set a target of 80% of students attending school more than 90% of the term by 2030. To achieve this, schools need to aspire to reach an average daily attendance rate above 94%.
- The total number of students included in daily attendance fluctuates from day to day. Reasons include: new students can be enrolled, and students may also leave school, a valid attendance code may not have been entered for a student for a specific day, or there may have been a technical problem with the submission or receipt of the data from an SMS.
- When a date is missing during term time, this is due to public holidays, regional holidays, and national teacher-only days.
- School closures due to regional anniversaries, differing term start dates, or school-specific teacher-only days, will be reflected in a lower school response rate.
- Fridays tend to have lower attendance than the rest of the week and this pattern has often been more marked around public holidays and the end of term.
- Data may be suppressed when certain filter combinations are applied. This will be indicated by an asterisk in tables, or by no data showing on the filtered dashboard.
- To ensure the anonymity of individual specialist schools, they are not included in the dashboard.
Introduction
The Daily Attendance Report provides information about student attendance or absence from school each day and is updated daily. Daily attendance data complements Regular Attendance data.
Report Structure
The report consists of three main tabs:
- Daily Attendance Overview
- Justified and Unjustified Absence
- Absence Reasons
Each tab shows a different aspect of the daily attendance and absence data. Filters are available for regional and other sub-national groups. Each tab includes an information box that provides a brief description of the content. You can find definitions and more details about the Daily Attendance Dashboard filters here.
Tab 1: Daily Attendance Overview
This tab shows the percentage, or number, of students present each day and displays the data as:
- Graph: Displays the percentage, or number, of students present each day.
- Filters: Year, Term, Regional Council, School Type, and Equity Index Group (EQI).
- Table: Shows the number of students present, the number of students for whom data was received, and the percentage of these students present. It also includes the response rate (percentage of expected schools that provided data).
Tab 2: Justified and Unjustified Absence
This tab categorises each day’s absences into justified and unjustified, and displays the data as:
- Graph: Displays the percentage of school time for the day coded as either justified or unjustified absence.
- Filters: Term, Regional Council, School Type, and EQI Group.
- Interactive Map: Allows users to click on a specific region to view the percentage of time coded as justified or unjustified absence for that region.
Tab 3: Absence Reasons
This tab displays absent time for specific absence codes:
- Graph: Displays the percentage of school time recorded to specific absence codes (eg Truant, illness/medical absence, unknown reason).
- Filters: Term, Regional Council, School Type, and EQI Group.
Using Power BI Features
To enhance your experience with the report, here are some useful Power BI tips:
- Selecting multiple items: Hold down the ‘Ctrl’ key on your keyboard and click on the items you wish to select.
- Viewing data as a table: Right-click on a chart and select ‘Show as a table’ to view the data in tabular form.
- Zooming and adjusting detail: Use visual zooming/zoom sliders to examine specific areas in a chart or adjust the level of detail without losing contextual information.
- Information icons: Click on the information icon to view details about a page, graph, or table.
Additional Information
Each report tab includes an information box that provides a brief description of the current tab’s content. More information about the Daily Attendance Report can also be found on the ‘About the Measures’ section.
About the measures
Daily Attendance:
Percentage of Students Present on the specified day.
Numerator:
Number of Students Present - the total number of students marked as present at school for four or more hours on the given day.
Denominator:
Total Students - the total number of students in state and state-integrated schools for whom attendance data was received. It does not include students of compulsory school age who are not currently enrolled in any school.
School Response Rate:
The percentage of all schools that provided attendance data for the given day.
Numerator:
Total Schools Attendance Received - schools that provided attendance data for the given day.
Denominator:
Total Expected Schools - all state and state-integrated schools, except those that have an explicit exemption to not submit daily attendance files.
School closures due to regional anniversaries, differing term start dates, or school-specific teacher-only days, will be reflected in lower response rates as no data will have been submitted for students enrolled in affected schools.
Notes
To be counted as present on a given day, an enrolled student must be present at school for four hours or more. This is different from the termly Regular Attendance measure and from the daily attendance reported during COVID-19.
Where a student is absent for all or part of a school day, schools record an appropriate absence code based on whether or not a reason has been given for the absence. Details of the absence codes used and guidance for schools about how to code absences can be found here.
The total number of students included in daily attendance fluctuates from day to day for reasons including: new students enrolled, students leaving school, or there may have been a technical problem with the submission or receipt of the data from one or more schools.
Detailed attendance records are required for the analysis in this report, therefore only schools that provide attendance data electronically can be included in this analysis. From Term 1, 2025, state and state-integrated schools are required to record student attendance data in the electronic attendance register in their Student Management System, every day they are open for instruction. The requirement to provide attendance data daily will not apply to specified kura boards until July 2025. This applies to:
- Kura Kaupapa Māori
- designated character schools with a character that is hapū or iwi-based or that affiliates with Ngā Kura ā Iwi Aotearoa
- a state-integrated school with a special character that is hapū or iwi based.
How does Daily Attendance relate to Regular Attendance?
Daily Attendance reports how many students are at school each day. Regular Attendance summarises attendance over a whole term for each student and then reports on how many students fall into each of the four regular attendance categories: regular attendance, irregular absence, moderate absence, and chronic absence. The relationship between these two measures is complex due to the different ways that attendance is being summarised (across all students each day, or across the term for each student).
The Government has set a target of 80% of students attending school more than 90% of the term (regular attendance) by 2030. To achieve this, schools need to aspire to reach an average daily attendance rate above 94%. The red line on the Daily Attendance Overview dashboard represents this rate of 94%.
Details about the collection of attendance data, including when the next regular attendance reporting is scheduled for release, can be found on the Attendance Data Collection page.
Why is Attendance important?
Attendance is linked to both student wellbeing and attainment. Ministry of Education insights studies[1] show that attending school and kura regularly is, on average, associated with more positive wellbeing outcomes. Ministry analysis found that 15-year-old students who reported skipping a greater number of days of school in the previous fortnight reported worse outcomes on average for a number of measures of wellbeing, including schoolwork-related anxiety, sense of belonging, exposure to bullying, motivation, and experiences of teacher unfairness.
Attendance is also linked to student attainment in secondary students. Recent research[2] shows that each additional half-day of absence from school and Kura is associated with a consistent reduction in the number of NCEA credits students subsequently attain – whether that is a student moving from 100% to 99% attendance or moving from 71% to 70% attendance. Students who are absent even 5-10% of the time (which is still considered “regular” attendance) obtain fewer NCEA credits than those with higher attendance rates. In short, evidence suggests that there is no “safe” level of non-attendance which has no impact on student and ākonga wellbeing and attainment.
Why does the total number of students fluctuate?
Reasons why the total number of students included in daily attendance fluctuates from day to day include: new students can be enrolled, and students may also leave school, or there may have been a technical problem with the submission or receipt of the data from an SMS.
Related / included links:
- Regular Attendance – Education Counts
- Attendance Data Collection – Education Counts
- School Equity Index Band and Groups – Education Counts
- Attendance under COVID-19 – Education Counts
- Attendance Codes and Attendance Codes Guidance – Education.govt.nz
Footnotes
- He Whakaaro: School attendance and student wellbeing, Ministry of Education, February 2020.
- He Whakaaro: What is the relationship between attendance and attainment? Ministry of Education, February 2020.